Going Under
by BespectacledSloth
Summary: AU in which Tadashi doesn't come to save Hiro from Yama and his men. (Kind of OOC, but mostly okay I think, given the circumstances.) Complete for now, but a second chapter is being thought about.


"Get him," Yama growled as he turned and walked away, leaving three of his best men to take care of the brat.

Hiro backed up against the brick wall, sliding his hands along beside him in search of a weapon as the three men approached him. He tried to make a break for it, sprinting desperately down the alley, but he could hear the men gaining on him even as he pushed himself to run faster. He glanced back briefly and when he turned back, nearly ran into a fire escape ladder that was down.

He grasped the rungs firmly and began to ascend the fire escape, stumbling on some of the stairs once he was on them, and racing towards the top of the building.

He could still hear the men not far behind him.

When he reached the roof, he raced to a door on the other side, grasping the handle and pushing, pulling, kicking, and beating against the surface as the first of the three men joined him on the rooftop. He backed away from them slowly, looking for an escape route that didn't involve plummeting three stories to the ground and possibly—probably—dying. He kept backing up as the three approached him and gasped when he nearly stepped off the edge.

"Now just wait a second, guys," he said quickly, reaching into his pockets and taking the wads of cash out, "Let's talk about this." He took the big roll of cash out and added it to his collection pile, "We can settle this like gentlemen, right?" He kept his peripheral vision focused on the any possibility of escape, and as he spoke tried to move to a better vantage point on the roof so he could locate an escape.

The men said nothing, merely continued approaching him, cracking their knuckles and necks—a trait that seemed to be popular with Yama and his crew, Hiro noticed idly—and one of them actually pulled a knife from the vast recesses of his cargo pants pockets. It was probably for intimidation purposes, Hiro hoped, and was meant to convince him to give up and accept what was coming to him—but if anything, it just made him want to run a lot faster and find a better way out of this.

Hiro waited for an opening, then threw the biggest wad of cash as hard as he could, and the second one of the men looked away, he bolted and sprinted for the other side of the roof, not even stopping long enough to hesitate as he threw himself from the rooftop and nearly rolled over himself as he flew through the air and landed with a body-stunning thud on the opposite roof.

He stumbled to his feet and started into a limping-sprint across the rooftop, dragging his right leg as pain shot through every inch of flesh and nerve in his body, all stemming from his ankle.

He found a spare bit of pipe on this roof and snagged it, using it both as a way to catch himself when he'd stumble, and for a weapon if Yama's men ever caught up with him now.

He managed to get several more roofs over, without jumping, and when he was sure he'd gotten far enough away, he found a way down the side of the building and began walking along the sidewalk, head tucked into his hood as best he could, and hands firmly in his pockets. He got halfway home when he heard the tires screeching on the road behind him and thought to turn and look just as a baseball bat soared over his head, connecting with a mailbox behind him and knocking it clean off and into the next yard.

He could only imagine the damage had that been his head.

Taking off at a sprint, Hiro ducked down a long stretch of alleyway and desperately hoped that it lead to a road or a busy street that he could lose them on. It seemed to go on forever, with locked backdoor after locked backdoor to shops of all kinds, and garbage piled way up high next to overfilled dumpsters, getting steadily darker as he got further down, and then letting out to light as he finally neared the end.

"Yes!" He whispered, glancing back to see the guys far enough behind him—thank god it was a thin alleyway and they couldn't drive down it—that he could get out into the street and lose them no matter where he went. He was getting short on breath as he raced for the end of the alley, his chest felt tight and he had to push through the screaming in his lungs to keep his pace up.

As he neared the end he felt panic rise through the pain as he saw the fence the stretched across the end of the alley. He ran to it, grasped the fence and shook it, trying to find an opening, something, because it was much too tall for him to get over before they got to him.

But with no other option, he had to try.

He was a few feet off the ground when he felt someone grab him by the back of his hoodie and start to pull. He could hear Yama's gruff laughter somewhere behind him and struggled to break free and climb higher out of reach. The grip was tight and unyielding until Hiro kicked backwards and struck the guy who had him in the face. He scrambled up another few inches before someone else could grab him again, but as he went to lift his left leg, the only thing in reach of them now, he felt two of them reach up and grasp his leg, dragging him down the fence.

With as tightly as he'd been gripping the fence, he wasn't surprised when the force of being pulled down cut his hand on the fence.

He clutched his arm to his chest as they pulled him close and got a better grip so he couldn't escape them again.

"H-Hey, fellas," he said with a nervous laugh and smile, "Come on, you wouldn't really hit a kid would you?" He tensed when he felt one of the smaller men grasp him under the arms and pull his arms away from his chest to expose it as the tallest, and probably strongest, cracked his knuckles again. "Come on, guys, let's talk about this! Yama? Yama, come on buddy!" He said desperately, but somewhere inside he knew this was going to hurt like hell.

And it did.

The second the fist connected with his stomach he pitched forward, feeling the air leave his lungs in one big exhale. It felt like the air had been vacuumed out of his body. He coughed and gasped, trying to regain his breath as the second fist came to him.

He could hear Yama's laughter all around him. Whether that was an echo in the alley or because his head was spinning was unsure, he just knew the big gangster was getting a kick out of watching his fully grown lackeys beat the snot, and some blood, out of the kid who cheated him out of a couple bucks.

At some point, after quite a few more punches had landed, Hiro crumpled to the ground and felt swift kicks come to his ribs, back, and head. He passed out after a couple of his ribs were broken and his lip had been split by a solid kick to the face. His nose was probably broken as well, but he was pretty out of it already before that happened and couldn't tell before the blackness engulfed him.

Icy water brought him out of the dark and into the not-much-brighter alley, surrounded by Yama's men. Something was broken or missing or split up the middle, because his entire left side was in excruciating pain and he felt like screaming but he couldn't muster the energy to do much more than groan and cough as he lay there, feeling hands in his jacket pulling money out by the handful. He didn't have enough fight in him to stop Yama when he grabbed the controller for Megabot either, just meekly protesting the seizure of his possessions.

Yama passed the controller between his hands for a moment, then decided such a tiny robot was of no use to him and dropped the controller next to Hiro's head along with Megabot.

Hiro reached out with his right hand, grasping for Megabot to pull him close, but just as his fingers skimmed over the bottom leg of his little robot, Yama's giant foot came smashing down on his fingers, and this time he was able to muster the energy to scream as he felt at least one of his fingers break when Yama ground his heel into his hand. He blacked out again, this time hearing as Yama brought his other foot down on Megabot and smashed it to bits.

Some time after that, Yama and his men must have left, because when Hiro came to later, they were gone. He dragged himself over to the fence, using his right arm to pull and letting out a small noise any time too much of the movement caused pain in his hand. He didn't want to look at his left arm—he could tell something was broken and he could tell it was bad and he really didn't want to see it. He already felt like he was going to throw up, and that was probably from the undoubted concussion he'd sustained from being kicked in the head so hard.

He gingerly slid his hand into his pocket, dragging his phone out and feeling thankful that he had his brother on speed-dial so he would have to press too many times on the screen. His hand felt like it was on fire no matter how little he used it, but using it _more_ was even less ideal than just sitting there and hoping he didn't get a muscle twitch.

"Hiro!" he immediately heard through the speaker as he turned the phone on speaker, "Hiro, where are you? Are you okay? I've been looking for you all over San Fransokyo! Are you out bot fighting? You had be worried half to death that I'd find you face-down in a ditch!"

Before Tadashi had even finished talking, Hiro began to cry. He couldn't stop himself. It was coming like a flood and every sob that wracked his body caused pain like he was being burned alive and he saw spots when he shifted and moved his arm, but he couldn't stop crying, not even when Tadashi started yelling into the phone for answers. He couldn't do anything but sob and cry like a child when he heard Tadashi telling him he'd be okay, that he'd be there soon, that GPS was a gift from god and that he was lucky there were people in the world who had had the decency to put it into phones and he'd tried tracking him before but it wasn't working and it wasn't exactly working now and he only had a general location and damn it was hard to drive with a phone in one hand but he'd do it and he'd be there soon.

And Hiro missed the rest when the phone slid off his lap and he leaned to the side, coughing and vomiting as the nausea from his head wound caught up with him.

He heard the familiar sound of Tadashi's scooted putt-putt by at a rapid pace, then tires screech and a crash as Tadashi apparently threw the scooter down in his attempt to get to Hiro quickly. He was on the other side of the fence and grasped it, reaching his fingers through, "Hiro, Hiro look at me," he said, desperation in his voice.

Hiro shook his head and knew Tadashi saw the same thing he did at that second, blood sling from the tips of his hair onto the ground.

"You're bleeding. God you're bleeding and you arm. Jesus Christ, Hiro," he said and began tugging at the fence to try and break it free from the posts so he could get through. The rattling alerted some people who had been walking by and they stopped to help him pull one corner free and away so he could crawl through and get to Hiro.

"Call an ambulance," one of the people said to someone else.

"No, I'll take him," Tadashi said, and Hiro could hear the venom under his voice. He hoped it wasn't going to be directed at him, but he knew at some point part of it would be. Probably after Hiro had had some treatment and couldn't argue back thanks to lots of hospital drugs. "Can you lift the fence? I need to get him through.

Hiro didn't say anything, he just looked to the side at Megabot, who lay in pieces, and Tadashi knew to grab what he could scoop up what he could into his cardigan pocket before they scooted under the fence.

Tadashi put Hiro's arm around his shoulders and his own arm around Hiro's waist as he made his way to the scooter and with the assistance of the people who had stopped, got the scooter standing up and Hiro onto the front part of the seat. Tadashi sat behind him, holding him up with basically his own body, legs and arms surrounding him as he started the scooter up and zipped off down the street towards his college. The nearest hospital was far enough away that going to the robotics lab was faster and would probably save Hiro's life, instead of putt-putting to the other side of town and letting him keep bleeding the whole way. As it was, Tadashi's white shirt and cardigan were already covered in blood just from Hiro leaning back on him.

When they got to the robotics lab, Tadashi threw the scooter down, picking Hiro—who seemed to be unconscious again—up and rushing inside with him. He passed some of his friends as he rushed through the lab, grabbing two or three of the emergency first aid kits as he rushed towards his private lab, and some of his friends—Wasabi, Honey Lemon, Go Go and Fred—fell into step behind him, grabbing other things and following him right to the lab. He had to get to his robotics project. He had to get to the nurse-bot he'd built specifically with the intent of helping people—helping Hiro.

When they got into the room, all of his friends immediately set about clearing off a table and laying out towels and scraps of fabric, anything they could find to make the cold table comfortable for Hiro, while Tadashi stepped to the middle of the room and said,

"Ow!" as loudly and emphatically as he could.

From the other side of the room, a bright red case slid open and the carefully-crafted nurse-bot he'd built began to inflate as he crossed the room to the table and gently laid Hiro out on it. He waited until Baymax, the bot, had fully inflated into his huggable, non-threatening state, then stepped aside.

Baymax stepped up, blinking around the room, "I heard a sound of distress," he said, then looked at Hiro and scanned him. "Patient had three broken ribs, a severe concussion, two broken fingers on his right hand, a fractures of the both the radius and ulna, and decreased blood pressure. Diagnosis:...inconclusive."

"He was beaten, Baymax," Tadashi said. "I need you to do what you can to stop the bleeding and then I'm taking him to the hospital once he's stable enough to transport."

Baymax nodded and got to work on stitching and closing some of the worst wounds, padding others with gauze to stem off the blood flow until he could get proper treatment, which would probably involve surgery for his arm to heal properly.

Tadashi watched for awhile, but at the insisting of his friend, stepped out into the hall while they questioned him about what happened. No one smiled. No one tried to console him. They could tell that he was about to snap any second, and no one wanted to say something that would set him off on them.

"I'm going to make some tea," Honey Lemon said eventually when, after Tadashi had told them all he knew—that Hiro had gone bot fighting and he had found him like this a few hours later—and they had all been quiet for some time.

"I'll come help you," Go Go spoke up, shoving off from the wall where she was leaning.

Fred and Wasabi stayed with Tadashi while the girls went off to get the drinks, and they tried to talk him down as gently as they could without setting him off. He couldn't go after the people who did this, because for all he knew Hiro had just been mugged, not thrashed to make an impression on him. Tadashi didn't even know who the guys who did it were, so how was he going to go after them? Besides, he needed to be here when Hiro woke up to take him to the hospital. Was he just going to leave his little brother with four strangers—at least to Hiro they were strangers—and a giant inflatable nurse?

"Look," Wasabi said, grabbing Tadashi's shoulder and squeezing tightly, "You've told us enough about Hiro, we feel like we're friends with him already, but he doesn't know us, and when he wakes up he's going to be looking for _you_. You and your Aunt and whoever he can get his arms around that he knows. He called _you_ for a reason. He called _you _ because he needed _you_, not the most convenient people around, not the police, not your Aunt. _You._ You're his brother and I don't care how pissed off you are right now, I'm not going to let you leave."

Fred nodded, "And the same goes for me," he flexed his hands, "Wasabi and I will fight you to keep you here, Tadashi."

Go Go and Honey came back with a tray of tea and some small snacks they'd found stashed around the snack station in the lab. Half bags of chips, some cookies, a whole slew of snacks, but none of them found themselves eating anything. They just sipped on lukewarm tea for an hour until Baymax emerged, his hands covered in a light layer of blood and announced that Hiro was stable and all of the serious blood flow had been stopped.

"You guys get Hiro, I'll drive," Go Go said, swinging a set of keys around her index finger. She was playing it off cool, but when Baymax had stepped out and she'd seen the blood, her face had gone stark white and she'd felt a little sick. Blood wasn't her strong suit. She wanted to be in the front of the car and distracted so she wouldn't see the blood.

Tadashi scooped him up into his arms and held him close while Honey, Fred, and Wasabi followed, Wasabi climbing into the front of the small yellow car with Go Go, while Tadashi, Honey, and Fred sat in the back with Hiro lain across their laps. Honey offered her small purse as a pillow for Hiro's head, not worried about the blood, and held his mangled hand gently as she nervously watched his face.

He was still unconscious, and none of the moving around had woken up. The concussion weighed heavily on all of their minds as they zipped across town to the hospital.

When they got there, Tadashi was out of the car and running through the front doors with Hiro before any of them had even unbuckled their seat belts. They slowly made their way inside after him, barely saying a word to each other as they slowly stepped through the doorway and found Tadashi sitting in the waiting room with his head in his hands. He'd been less nervous when he knew whose hands Hiro was in back at the lab. Now, anything could happen.

"Tadashi," Honey said, slipping into the seat next to him and gently placing her hand on his knee, "He'll be okay," she said. "You got him to Baymax before it was too late, and now you got him here for the cleanup. He's going to be _fine._" She said softly, glancing up when Go Go sat cross-legged on the floor and nodded.

"Baymax took good care of him, and now the doctors are going to get everything else in order so he can heal."

Wasabi and Fred sat on either side of Tadashi and Honey, looking at Tadashi with worry-filled eyes.

"What are you thinking, man?" Fred said softly.

"Nothing."

"You're not gonna go and find those guys, are you?" Wasabi lowered his voice as a nurse walked by.

Tadashi dug his palms into his eyes and sighed. "No. Yes. I don't know." he shoved off of his seat and began pacing the floor, then sat again, then got up and started pacing again. "I want to see Hiro but they wouldn't let me go in. What if they bring him out of surgery and he wakes up? What if he doesn't wake up?" He threw his hands into the air as he spoke.

"Tadashi," Go Go said, rising from the floor and slipping her phone into his hand. There was a number already dialed into it, "Calm down. Call your Aunt, then come and sit down and we will all wait with you. For as long as it takes."

He stared at her for a second, eyes wavering and almost, just almost, on the verge of tears as he took a few deep breaths then pressed for the phone to send the call. He stepped outside, per instruction of a nurse telling him he couldn't use a phone in the hospital, and when he came back in he had already hung up. He handed the phone back to Go Go, then gave her a half hug and sat back down, "Thanks," he said, looking around at his friends, "To all of you."

Aunt Cass was there within fifteen minutes, having ushered everyone out of the shop as soon as she got the call, and looked like a ball of nerves as Tadashi explained what he knew to her. He told her about Baymax and that Hiro was stable when they brought him in, but they weren't sure about now. Not a single doctor had given them news yet.

The group waited impatiently in the waiting room for hours. It seemed like years to Tadashi and Aunt Cass, and the pair of them alternated questioning the nurses as they went by and pacing around.

The group was left waiting until late into the night. Honey was curled up in a chair, her sweater off and laying over her like a blanket. In the seat next to her, Fred was staring at a comic book, but he'd been on the same page for the past two hours and couldn't manage to focus long enough to read a single word. Wasabi had begun nervously organizing things on the tables around them. Everything looked immaculate already, but he kept cleaning just to keep his hands busy. Go Go was watching everyone else and feeling irritated that was nothing they could do to help, but she didn't voice it. It wasn't her place to be angry. Tadashi should be the one to speak up, but he had put his head in his hands and hadn't brought it up for almost an hour straight while Aunt Cass stood and spoke with a nurse at length.

Finally, near midnight, a doctor emerged from the back.

"Hamada?" He called, looking at everyone.

They all seemed to stand simultaneously except for Tadashi who lifted his head, but didn't make eye contact.

"Hiro's surgery went well. His arm is set and in a cast, and we were able to set his other bones without anything invasive. He's been in the ICU for awhile now under observation and we believe he may wake up soon. Immediate family is permitted to join him when we move him to his own room. Whichever of you did the sutures did an excellent job and you may have saved his life."

Tadashi still didn't rise, and the doctor left after Aunt Cass hugged him in a moment of joy. Everyone looked at Tadashi. His hands were shaking a little and he took a breath.

"I-"

Aunt Cass got the jump on him, "I'm going to go make some calls and then I'm going to get some food and be back in time to go see Hiro." She couldn't keep a small smile off her face, but the bags under her eyes and the pale tone of her skin showed that she was still worried sick. "If they let you in early, text me," she said, quickly kissing Tadashi on the cheek and hugging everyone else. She raced out, phone in hand, and was gone in moments.

"Tadashi," Fred said, "You know, once you see him you could..."

"Fred, shut up," Go Go said. "Tadashi, I know you want to go after those guys, but you can't."

Tadashi stood up, shoving his hands in his pockets to make them stop shaking, "Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Go Go. After I see Hiro I'm going after them."

"And do what? Get the snot beaten out of you too?" Wasabi spoke up. "I'm with Go Go, you can't do this, man. I know you're pissed but you need to focus on Hiro. You want to go after these guys when he's okay? Get the police involved, but right now your little brother is in the _hospital_ and all you can think about doing is going to get the guys who put him there? You nearly didn't even seem him off this far. You need to chill out."

"None of you get it." Tadashi snapped, looking up at them all. "None of you understand anything." He flopped back down again. He wasn't sure what to do with his hands, or his legs, or himself. He wasn't sure what to do.

Honey knelt down by him and gently took his hand, squeezing it, "Then make us understand it," she whispered. She looked him in the eyes and smiled a little, "Let us in. You're more than happy to be open with us when you're happy, but we've never seen you like this. Never seen you frustrated and angry and worried for your brother. We don't know how to react to you like this, so you need to let us in and tell us what is going on."

They were all silent for a moment as Tadashi thought about what she'd said, nodding slowly as he stood up and slid his hand out of hers, "Okay..." he said softly. "Okay." He took a steady breath and paced around for a second. "Okay." He repeated. He tapped his hands against his legs and took another breath, "Hiro and I lost our parents ten years ago, you all know that," he said shakily. "Tonight I almost lost him too. I almost lost him to some thug with a bunch of stupid lackeys," he paced a little, then took another breath. "If he hadn't called me, I don't know if I would have ever found him in time. When I couldn't get the GPS tracking in his phone to work, I just started driving around aimlessly to ever place I knew bot fights happened at. I didn't know what else to do. I tried calling and he didn't pick up and I just..." he stopped and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost him," he stopped rubbing, but kept his eyes closed, taking deep breaths to steady himself.

With his eyes closed, he couldn't see his friends come towards him and all hug him tightly—except for Go Go who kind of just half-hugged him—and they held him until he smiled a little.

"Tadashi, you underestimate yourself too much," Wasabi said. "You would have found him. You're his brother. You'll always find him."

"Yeah, you're a great brother, and an amazing friend." Fred said with a huge grin.

They broke apart and he smiled at them, "Thanks guys."

"Hamada," a doctor stepped out. "He's waking up, you can come see him."

When they all moved to go in, the doctor shook his head, "Immediate family only," he said.

Tadashi frowned, "They are his immediate family. His immediate extended family." He stepped aside and let them in in front of him, then followed behind as the doctor stared after them, a deep frown etched onto his face to match his furrowed brow.

They all stepped into the small room quietly, hearing the gentle beeps of machines that sat on the left side of Hiro's bed.

He wasn't quite sitting up, but he was at a slight angle, staring out the window next to him. His eyes had a slightly glazed look to them, and his face was pale as a ghost. He was idly moving his fingers on his left hand where they stuck out from the cast around it.

"Hey, Bonehead," Tadashi said softly, coming around the edge of the bed to look at him.

Hiro turned to look at him, blinking a little to try and focus through the haze of painkillers, then smiled, "Hey," he said. When he saw everyone else he frowned, "Uhm. Hello."

Tadashi laughed softly, gesturing, "Hiro, this is Wasabi, Go Go, Honey Lemon, and Fred."

They said hello and from there it was easy. They all sat around the room talking with until Aunt Cass showed up with the food and they enjoyed an impromptu picnic on the bed with him until he got tired. They packed up, said their goodbyes, and left so he could rest.

The next few days went on like that. Everyone would come visit at once, and sometimes they'd visit individually just to say hello and check up on him on their way to or from school. Occasionally, Tadashi would come by just to get descriptions of the guys that had beaten him, but Hiro feigned memory loss about those details. He didn't want Tadashi to find those guys and get himself injured, so he kept the information about Yama and his goons to himself.

After almost two weeks, he was released from the hospital and told to take it easy. He had to leave in a wheelchair—hospital policy—and grumbled about it until they were all the way outside to the parking lot. His legs weren't broken and he could walk fine, so he shouldn't have had to leave in a wheelchair. If anything, he'd needed help before that when he couldn't get his shirt on over his more permanent—and already coated in long messages from Tadashi's friends—cast that he'd have to keep for six more weeks. He'd gotten his arm stuck in the shirt and could rearrange it easily. Instead he'd ended up just putting the shirt on backwards instead of trying to fix it. It was easier. It was also uncomfortable to have the tag itching at his throat.

He slid into the cab of Aunt Cass' truck and Tadashi joined him. Their friends clambered into the back of the truck and settled in for the short drive to the cafe where there was a small party waiting to welcome Hiro home. It was a bittersweet kind of party, for Hiro and Tadashi anyways, because it meant that they would be getting closer to talking more seriously about his _accident_, but both were glad for him to be home at last.

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Review it if you feel like it and hit that fave button! If you like my work feel free to follow me, I plan to write more BH6! (hopefully more in-character even when doing an AU!)

Thanks to someone on Tumblr [wish I knew your url!] who posted about wanting to see this! Hope it's written well enough to suit your taste!

Be warned that the first 1,000ish words were written at seven in the morning while I kept falling asleep sitting up, so if there's errors I'm sure I'll find them later while looking back on this!


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